Integrating ACT and coaching
Nadine Hemmer and Benji Schoendorff talk about the origins of the ACT and Coaching workshop, and how the depth and flexibility of the ACT approach works so well in a coaching context. Here is an extract of their conversation, which you can watch in full in the video....
Important
For more than 30 years, I led my life trying to feel good and, most of all, trying not to feel bad. Far from achieving happiness, it led me into a succession of cul-de-sacs. And further and further from happiness. Yes, of course, I sometimes managed to...
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
When I write, I choose to face the discomfort of writing. I step out of my comfort zone. The hardest thing is to walk through the barrier of frustrations that have accumulated for decades. My most intense frustration is that after more than ten years of almost daily writing practice, I still never feel like writing. So writing always makes me step out of my comfort zone. Yet, writing is also a way of taking care of myself and moving toward what matters to me, through my actions. Broadly speaking, taking care of myself often involves stepping out of my comfort zone. And for you?
Putting your values in action
Writing has always been important to me. Ever since I was eight years old, I’ve always wanted to write. But in truth, I never felt like writing. I was well in my forties before I discovered that I could write even if I never felt like it. Ten years later, I am on my...
Psychotherapy Effectiveness: Why I Measure my Effectiveness
For many years I was a prisoner of a futile struggle against my own suffering. I struggled so long that I naturally developed a burning passion for psychotherapy effectiveness and for quick and effective approaches. This is how I came to evidence-based and...
What is stress and how to free yourself from it?
Stress, stress, stress. Life stresses you out. You job stresses you. Your friends stress you. The future stresses you. Everything stresses you, and it’s absolutely normal. For starters, look at the speed of modern life. The thing is, your brain is not...
TEAL, how does it work precisely?
Emails. Calls. Accounting. Technical support. Problem solving. Team management. Customer services. Booking. Is the definition of administrative assistant limited to that? Is the role of an employee limited to a list of tasks? As seen before in CPI goes...
Questions that keep you up at night: Where am I going in my life?
What keeps you up at night ? We’ve all been there. 3 a.m. You’re beat, but your mind won’t let you sleep. Like a dog with a bone, it keeps noisily gnawing on the same questions. Well, professor Ben Fletcher and his team have sought to identify the...
Am I doing the right thing?
We’ve all been there. 3 a.m. You’re beat, but your mind won’t let you sleep. Like a dog with a bone, it keeps noisily gnawing on the same questions. Well, professor Ben Fletcher and his team have sought to identify the questions that keep us up at...
Personal training
“If only all of life was like the gym”, Jay sighed. Between his hours as a personal trainer, and his own busy exercise regime, Jay could spend up to 30 hours a week at the gym. While he was lifting weights or helping someone else reach their physical best,...
What do other people think of me?
What keeps you up at night ? We’ve all been there. 3 a.m. You’re beat, but your mind won’t let you sleep. Like a dog with a bone, it keeps noisily gnawing on the same questions. Well, professor Ben Fletcher and his team have sought to identify the...
How to free yourself from body image tyranny?
We live in a world where image is everything. More and more girls, boys, women and men hate their bodies. Artfully photoshopped and CGIed celebs fill your screens. The contrast couldn’t be starker with the image that ambushes you in your bathroom mirror....
What keeps you up at night ?
We’ve all been there. 3 a.m. You’re beat, but your mind won’t let you sleep. Like a dog with a bone, it keeps noisily gnawing on the same questions. Well, professor Ben Fletcher and his team have sought to identify the questions that keep us up at night....
When nothing will ever be the same again
Thanks to Facebook, one of my friends recently had the joy of reconnecting with his friend Lucy*. In their twenties, Lucy and him had been the best of friends. But then they lost touch for some 30 years. His joy at reconnecting was soon overshadowed when...
Gatekeeper or guide?
Life is a jungle. And if as parents, our job is to bring children into the world and let them loose in that jungle. OMG! No wonder most of us parents regularly panic. Today’s blog is based on a lovely metaphor by our Australian friend Darin Cairns. Darin...
Depressive realism
When we are depressed, everything looks dark. Our past, our future and of course our present. The things we loved seem to lose interest, our most precious relationships seem to lose significance. Our view of ourselves take a hit and our self-esteem is...
ACT and chronic pain
Pain hurts. And when it hurts, it’s only natural to want to stop the pain. For most of us, pain is temporary. It signals that something threatens our physical integrity and it helps us take action to move away from danger. In this sense, pain is useful...
The Power of Simple Words
At the CPI, our mission is to put psychological flexibility in the water supply. This is one of the reasons why we are passionate about making ACT as simple as possible. This way, everybody has a chance to get it. We use what we call the “simple words” approach. In...
Cognitive fusion: when the stories of our monkey minds rule our lives
Have you ever been convinced that you couldn’t do something, that in fact you could? Have you ever believed that a loved one thought something about you, only to find out later that they held the opposite view? Have you ever been convinced something would work, and...
Loneliness is a serial killer
One of the greatest risk factors for early death, on par with smoking and twice as deadly as obesity or alcohol, is loneliness. We can die from being alone. As human beings, we are the most social of all mammals. Is it a surprise then that social connection and...